How Do You Pronounce “Often”?

[Vraith]

That's daft. Cawf? Shark? I'd love to hear you speak!

Dear dear I've got a cawf!
Oh, I just had an electric shark!

This must be what makes learning English as a second language so difficult. Bough and bow (both as in ouch), unless you mean the thing you put in your hear which is bow (as in boat).

Hey, now...I didn't say anything about shark is like shock...cuz they aren't.
[heh...though there is an accent....hmmm...Chicago-area that comes pretty close to that on some words.]

And I didn't say it wasn't DAFT [though I laughed, which it rhymes with]...you aren't the first to point it out, check out this:

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead -
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five!

Shock sounds like "la"...as in fa sol la ti do.
Shark as in "art"

[ussusimiel]

(Same as 'fop') 'cough' is /kɒf/in any accent : RP, Oz, NZ, US, Scottish etc.

If ye keep this up you're going to have to get into the phonetic alphabet 'cos that's the only way that all the confusion can be cleared up:



Or maybe ye're having too much fun

u.

[Vraith]

Or maybe ye're having too much fun

u.

I was trying to avoid that cuz though I'm pretty sure, if I looked, my computer has the capacity to produce those characters I don't know where it is...and not sure they'd post here? Never tried odd character sets?

I wasn't having any fun at all. I would never prolong something to ridiculous lengths just for the pleasure of snickering to myself about it.

I swear.

[Zarathustra]

I think it's funny that people still believe there are "correct" ways to pronounce words. It's just convention, which changes with use and time. There are so many dialects and accents, yet we usually understand each other just fine. I don't see why it matters, as a long as meaning is communicated. Who sets the rules? Why do they get to decide?

I use both forms, unconsciously, depending on where the word falls in a sentence. I pronounce the t in, "It doesn't happen often." I don't pronounce the t in, "I often find that ..."

I have no idea why I do this. I didn't know until I thought about it.

It's utterly ridiculous that we have one set of letters to spell words, and another set to spell sounds. We should just use one. If we spelled words phonetically, we would never have to argue about what is "correct" pronunciation.

Or maybe that's how things started, and then people changed their minds about which sounds certain letters designated. Which goes back to my first point.

[aliantha]

Unless you're one of those weirdos who actually pronounces a distinct R sound.

Don't want to disrupt the fun, but rhotic, nonrhotic accents guys?!

u.

I was gonna say that if we were having this conversation in person, and could hear everybody's accents, a lot of the ambiguity would be cleared up.

I was also gonna say that I've heard some Brits slide an "r" in where it doesn't belong. But let's not muddy the waters here.

Hey, now...I didn't say anything about shark is like shock...cuz they aren't.
[heh...though there is an accent....hmmm...Chicago-area that comes pretty close to that on some words.]

The Chicago accent requires that you shove your short vowel sounds all the way up into your nose. But you still have a distinct, and very Midwestern, hard "r". So Chicagoans do pronounce "shock" and "shark" differently.

[Vraith]

So Chicagoans do pronounce "shock" and "shark" differently.

Well, I DID say

comes pretty close to that on some words.

emphasis mine. [Y'all have any idea how much I'm cracking myself up in this thread??]

But, the REAL truth is...
Yea, there is a "Standard American," with particular applications/prejudices/uses. [Born from nothing but historical divisive obnoxiousness/regionalism/classism/all kinds of isms.]
Like, try becoming a reporter on any real network if you don't speak something close to it.
So, I really agree with Z.
I think the same thing about GRAMMAR in a lot of cases.
Freaking CNN is in ATLANTA!
Have you heard ANY of their people commonly use even the mild "Y'all?"...
ACCENTISM I tell you!
[Not one of them has ever "axed" anyone a question either...which, by the way, is NOT a particularly "Black Americanism." And I tend to say extremely rude things in a stage-trained projecting voice to people who make racist fun about "axing."]

But this thread was SO much more fun to argue about silent "T" and "Aw"some sounds.

[I'm Murrin]

Hey, now...I didn't say anything about shark is like shock...cuz they aren't.
[heh...though there is an accent....hmmm...Chicago-area that comes pretty close to that on some words.]
[snip]

Shock sounds like "la"...as in fa sol la ti do.
Shark as in "art" [/color]

This is all crazytalk to me. You say Shark and Shock sound different, but then you say the vowel in shock sounds like "la", which would make shock sound almost exactly like "shark" (again, unless you pronounce the "r"). "La" "shark" and "art" all have the same vowel sound.

Shock rhymes with sock, lock, doc, mock. Shark rhymes with arc, park, lark.

[ussusimiel]

shock /ʃɒk/

sock /sɒk/


shark /ʃɑ:k/ or /ʃɑ:rk/ (in rhotic accents e.g. US, Irish etc).

bark /bɑ:k/ or /bɑ:rk/

u.

[Orlion]

I'll make this simple and decree Spanish to be the official language of the General Literature Discussion Forum! JAJAJAJAJAJAJA!

[I'm Murrin]

European Spanish or Latin American Spanish?

[Iolanthe]

If we spelled words phonetically, we would never have to argue about what is "correct" pronunciation.

1837

I am sorry to trouble you again a bought the Child (of) Sarah NEWTON as it is quight out of my power to keep her without I have sum thing aloud with her as I am so short of breath & not able to worke and am on the Stamford Union myself and am not likley be any better at the preasant, I sent you a few lines a bought a month a go and never recd aney answer from it and if you canot alou me aneything I hope you will send me worde were she is to turn too Willsford Parish ad use to a low me 2s/- per week but I have not recd aney for sum time on Acct of the Union if it was in my power to keep the Child I would not trouble you, answer and you will much oblige me.

[Orlion]

European Spanish or Latin American Spanish?

Argentinian Spanish, che?

[Avatar]

If we spelled words phonetically, we would never have to argue about what is "correct" pronunciation.

(What are the odds I quoted this next bit twice in one week? )

Ian M Banks 1994

Well, Ergates sez (& u can juss tel she’s tryin 2 b payshint)
aside from the fact that it is folly 2 fro away even 1 life out ov
8, & thi eekwilly sailyent poynt that in thi present emerginsy it
mite b fullish 2 rely on thi effishint funkshining ov thi
reeincarnative prossess, ther is my own safety 2 think about.
(Banks 1994: 18)

Sum flox reckin its oll 2 do wif thi approachin enkroachin;
they fink thi kaotic levils ov thi kript ½ sumhow woken up 2
thi fact that fings cude eventjulie get a bit hazardis even 4
them. (ibid: 79)

And that book is consistent. In reality, that wouldn't happen. In fact, regional accents would simply make phonetic spelling even more inconsistent.

And how about scientific or academic research and study? Do they maintain a different language (to all intents and purposes) for those purposes?

Or do you want your doctor giving you a phonetically written script for your meds?

--A

[Menolly]

Y'all ever try reading Twain's Huckleberry Finn? Even as a teen living in the south, the narrative in that book gave me a headache to work through. I found reading the Nadsat in Burgess' A Clockwork Orange far easier a few years later.

[sgt.null]

I live in the south and have picked up some of the idioms.

i'm fixin' to tell you'all that I reckon its hard to understand myself at times.

[Holsety]

If we spelled words phonetically, we would never have to argue about what is "correct" pronunciation.

(What are the odds I quoted this next bit twice in one week? )

Ian M Banks 1994

Well, Ergates sez (& u can juss tel she’s tryin 2 b payshint)
aside from the fact that it is folly 2 fro away even 1 life out ov
8, & thi eekwilly sailyent poynt that in thi present emerginsy it
mite b fullish 2 rely on thi effishint funkshining ov thi
reeincarnative prossess, ther is my own safety 2 think about.
(Banks 1994: 18)

Sum flox reckin its oll 2 do wif thi approachin enkroachin;
they fink thi kaotic levils ov thi kript ½ sumhow woken up 2
thi fact that fings cude eventjulie get a bit hazardis even 4
them. (ibid: 79)

And that book is consistent. In reality, that wouldn't happen. In fact, regional accents would simply make phonetic spelling even more inconsistent.

And how about scientific or academic research and study? Do they maintain a different language (to all intents and purposes) for those purposes?

Or do you want your doctor giving you a phonetically written script for your meds?

--A

It is folly to throw away even one life out of infinite [lives]?!?!?!

There's a Gene Wolfe short story that sort of messes with this a bit (importance of reading in society). Forgot what it's called and too lazy to fetch it unless you're curious, but it's about a fellow who is dethawed from cold storage and finds himself in a prison (or rather he was frozen while in prison). The people of the current time period have more or less figured out medicine to the point of prolonging their lives indefinitely. But, a fair number of 'em have never learned to read, because this chap invented a sort of book on tape that can talk to its "audience" about the book as well.

(Apparently he invented it so he could have people to talk about books with, or that was the sort of curiousity-motive behind it, and he's in prison for offing his partner - didn't spend a lot of time figuring the details of that one, but it had a kind of All My Sons vibe to it to me)

But it sorta turns out that there's a glitch going on where Dickens characters are permeating whatever this machine is supposed to read, sort of like how written characters seem to permeate everything I think, and they want him to fix it and he sort of gets accepted back into society in order to mess with this mistake because society has this idea that understanding their instructions and information stuff is important for its continuation and Dickens characters are really making this a problem. (And reteaching reading would be really difficult now that so few can read - I find this last aspect slightly unlikely given the apparent spike in literacy "we" experienced.)

There's sex'ish and maybe a bit of violins'ish stuff too (or worries about em) but it's not too spicy.

Also, a phonetically written script for meds might not be too bad (though given the size the papers I've seen generally are, probably not a good idea...) since I've found that in discussing meds, some other patients seem to have different ideas of the med pronunciation and sometimes this does reflect actual differences (though admittedly fairly minor ones, sometimes at least).